


Sing These Words And We'll Never Die

by KilltheDJ



Series: Ain't About The Friends You Made [2]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bands Aren't The Killjoys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ
Summary: Storm and Dust - two of the kids The Fab Four liberated from Zone 1 two months ago. They decide that it's time to stop using placeholder names.
Series: Ain't About The Friends You Made [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556893
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Sing These Words And We'll Never Die

**Author's Note:**

> Note - I made SURE this wasn't edited and is also still in the Arial font on my doc. So it's definitely not beta-read!

“Hey, where’s Dust?” Kobra Kid called from the garage of the Diner, motor oil smeared across his cheek and in his hair. 

Storm snorted. Leave it to Kobra to forget he couldn’t wipe off his face with equally as dirty hands. But in response, he simply shrugged - “Think he told me he was going to hang with Sandman or somethin’. Disappeared an hour or so ago.”

He could almost hear the frown Kobra was giving. “...Oh. I was gonna ask him if he wanted to help me with 27. Didn’t he say he wanted to get into mechanics?”

“Kinda, but he thinks Sandman’s make-up is a way more pressing issue,” said Storm, a grin on his face. Sandman’s make-up was cool, and Storm was vaguely upset that Dust wasn’t spending the day with him, but he got so excited when it came to make-up and learning how to do it and where to find it that it made all the hurt wash away. (That, and Storm was clingy and trying to force himself not to be.)

Storm himself was sitting criss-cross on the ground, painting a ray gun. A ray gun! Poison had finally given him one of his own; he said he was one of the oldest, it was time he started learning how to use one of these things. He was a natural, which they’d all learned rather quickly. Jet didn’t like it when he was actually shooting, but he’d been dying to paint it, and had been waiting for a week for Pony to swing the paints by. 

Kobra walked out of the garage to come sit by him, no issue with being downwind of the red spray paint he was using as his base coat, apparently. For some reason, Kobra hadn’t set down the wrench he was holding, his red bandanna wrapped around his wrist. “I guess that’s that, then. He likes Sandman, huh?”

“I think we all do, a little at least.” It was true. Sandman had a way with kids, Storm thought. But if he had a way with kids, then he had a way with young teenagers, too, ‘cos Storm was thirteen and still thought he was the coolest person ever.

Minus Kobra, of course, but that was fair considering Storm had yet to watch a motorbike race that Kobra lost. (Sandman lost a lot). 

With a nod, Kobra then scrunched up his nose at the spray paint that accidentally splattered across his face - adjusting where he was sitting, until he was sitting across from Storm, mermaid style, with the ray gun and the paints in-between them. “You kids all seem to like ‘im. I was, uh, I was actually lookin’ to see if I could ask him something…Something about you two, actually.”

“Ask him what?” 

“I was wondering if you two had picked out names yet.” Kobra looked uncomfortable asking, and Storm didn’t blame him.

It had been two months since they’d - ‘they’ being the eight kids - been rescued from that facility in Zone 1; two months since they’d all been taken in by the Fabulous Killjoys (and occasionally the Youngbloods, when tensions rose too high or they simply wanted to go); two months since...No one had actually introduced themselves.

Look, Storm and Dust both knew how the Desert worked - while they’d been a little clueless as to how it actually worked beyond the propaganda sold to them in everything they consumed, they knew that names were important, they knew that names held power and they didn’t want to give them out.

So, they’d given out those names: Storm and Dust, two placeholder names while they adjusted to life in the Desert, or on the off-chance they went back to the city, no one would know their names to connect them to anything. 

But that’s what they were. Placeholder names.

At least they hadn’t stupidly given out their names. Valen and Salem had, and Valen and Salem are idiots, but they are Storm’s idiots. Annoying little siblings was the dynamic around here. 

Everyone had been itching to wait until Storm and Dust found their names, because Storm reckons, it gets difficult when there’s a dust storm around. That, and maybe it would help Jace and Mattew and Gray and Blue to either come up with names, or placeholder names, or permanent names. 

Just names. Names - oh, wait, he still hadn’t answered Kobra’s question! Fuck!

“I think we have,” Storm announced, an excited hum to his voice. He was really excited for the name he picked, but he and Dust wanted to wait until the perfect moment to unveil them. Dramatics were key out here and they did live with Party Poison, after all, they were bound to pick up a few things…

Kobra quirked a brow. “You have? And you haven’t told anyone?”

“No,” Storm shook his head. “Waitin’ for Dust to give the a-okay. I wanna have a look to go with it when I tell everyone.”

“And that’s why you’re painting your gun right now, right?” Kobra asked, nodding toward the gun. The base coat of red had dried with the heat and the sun working in Storm’s favor for once - wait, fuck, and it also dried red paint all over his thumb and index finger. 

Oh well. 

Storm gave his excited grin once again, picking up the gold paint (actual paint; most of it was actual paint, the red was just needed as a base) delicately, then picking out a decently thick small paintbrush. “Yeah! Workin’ on the gun so I can get everythin’ together, y’know? Pony says they’ll help me with everythin’ else - the wardrobe and all -, but I wanted this to be a me think. This and the mask!”

Wait, that’s oversharing. Dammit. Oh well.

With a simple nod, Kobra nudged the yellow paint while Storm painted a precise circle of gold around the gun’s hilt, a playful and relieved smile (maybe a little excited too…) on his face that Storm barely noticed. “Aw, you’ll paint it red, but not yellow? D’ya not love me or somethin’?”

“Don’t be a dick - “

“Hey! Language!” Jet called from...somewhere.

Storm rolled his eyes, going back to working on a second, thinner circle directly underneath the first one, pushing the yellow paint away. “Why is Jet suddenly gettin’ on everyone about language?” Storm complained.

Kobra shrugged. “My guess is as good as yours, kid. I think it’s ‘cos Gray an’ Blue are startin’ to imitate all the cursing.”

“So what! The kids are gonna pick it up eventually, it’s, like, Desert tradition!”

If Kobra was laughing...well, he was laughing, and he wasn’t hiding it very well. Storm felt a surge of pride in his chest. Kobra smiled and grinned a lot, but he rarely laughed - even a giggle felt like an accomplishment, let alone a genuine laugh. “You have picked it up rather...heavily, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not at fuckin’ all,” Storm drawls sarcastically, wiping the gold paint off the brush and finding the black. “Nope, no language here.”

“If there’s a curse in your name, Jet will literally skin you alive, you know that, right?” said Kobra; he was clearly trying to keep his composure and failure. Storm didn’t know what was so funny about that, but Kobra was a little weird, so it was fine. 

Storm rolled his eyes regardless. “There’s no cursin’ in my name, it’s fine. No skinning alive here, no sir. Just a lot of paint.”

“Is that gonna be a design, or…?”

Storm explained with a happy nod. He loved talking about what he was doing. Or himself in general. “Yeah! I’m gonna draw a black line that slashes through both the gold circles and color the half of one circle yellow, ‘n the other half of the other circle yellow!”

“No one’s gonna see the hilt of your gun if you’re holding it.” Kobra had a point. Storm already knew this, though. “So…?”

“Only the lucky ones’ll see the hilt of my gun!” Storm joked.

He liked Kobra. Kobra was probably his favorite, actually. Kobra was a bit dumb sometimes but he was genuinely the smartest tech person, and he knew mechanics but only for the specific make and model 27 was - that was what he named his bike, accented by the bold 27 painted on the side -, and he went out of his way to talk to Storm sometimes. In fact, he went out of his way to talk to all of the kids, though maybe not Jace because Jace was a little violent with Kobra sometimes because Kobra reminded him of home, for some reason.

Still, even though it was probably a routine check-in, Storm liked the company, and he liked talking to Kobra.

Kobra returned Storm’s eye roll from earlier. “Will they, now? The lucky ones are the dead ones, though.”

“Says the guy with the ‘GOOD LUCK’ stencil on your helmet.”

“Call it a passive-aggressive love letter.”

“That’s fair,” Storm said, giving a slight head shake of recognition. “That’s really fair - wait, hey, d’ya think Ghoulie’ll mind if I totally steal his idea and doodle on my gun?”

There was a shrug for an answer, so Storm took that as an okay, filing it away for later considering he was still working on filling in the yellow halves of the circles exactly as they were supposed to be so he didn’t have to repaint anything later. 

“Do you think you ‘n Dust’ll drop your names anytime soon? I hate to ask again, but...I think Gray an’ Blue and the two others might be close to introducing themselves,” Kobra blurted. “And they might need that vote of confidence goin’ for ‘em, y’know?”

“Or they might clam up even more because they’ll feel like our reveal will overshadow anything they might announce,” Storm pointed out, glancing up only for the emphasis.

He kept forgetting that the Four and the Youngbloods knew Jace and Mattew solely as ‘the other two’ most of the time, or ‘kid’ (but only when Kobra wasn’t in the room) and ‘you’ and ‘blondie over there’. 

Jace and Mattew didn’t trust the Four and the Youngbloods; didn’t really trust Storm, either, but hey, he was trying! The face on their faces when Storm told them about whatever current escapade Poison was trying to hide from them was gaining their trust, he thought…

__

“Are you ready?” Storm asked nervously, fiddling with his collar. 

In the dim lighting of one of their rooms - considering the Diner did have a small motel attached to it -, Dust shook his head no but showed no signs of backing out now. They couldn’t back out now. Not that either of them wanted to; it was just nerve-racking, because if they messed up they could never get this moment of their lives back.

Then again, they were young, and since they were young everything felt like time flying by; too much time wasted. Maybe that feeling never would never go away, not with the lives they led, but for now, this was the most pressing thing to Storm and Dust.

They were just kids, and they hadn’t been in any particularly bad life-or-death situations - yet, at least, so this probably felt more important than it actually was, but it didn’t stop Strom from being giddy and excited and happy.

“D’ya think they’ll like it?” Dust asked, worry dotting his tone. He was more nervous than Storm, not that Storm could blame him. Dust was more worry-prone than Storm in general.

“I think they’ll love it,” Storm smiled, as bright and encouraging as he could manage.

And he whole-heartedly believed it, too. Dust looked amazing...Fully ready to embrace the Desert lifestyle, fully able to leave his old City name and life and memories behind. 

Besides, Dust looked amazing in his red make-up. Maybe it was the lighting making him seem golden, or maybe it was purple fading into red (all eyeshadow, too, which was impressive), with black eyeliner birds across his cheek. The black denim jacket - with patches of every color, all painstakingly sewn on in secret, - was snug around his shoulders. And, hey, those black jeans really did a thing or two for his ass, but that was probably the thirteen-year-old hormones talking.

They did a lot of talking, but that wasn’t the point right now, and Storm rolled his eyes at himself and focused back on Dust. Suddenly Dust was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. Dust was always the prettiest thing he saw. Dust was amazing. Storm’s breath was knocked out of his lungs.

How stereotypical from those few love stories he’d read in the last few months. Maybe it was all the reading.

“I think - I think you look extraordinary,” Storm muttered, maybe a little wide-eyed. Hopefully he hid it well, ‘cos he didn’t feel like explaining that, thank you very much.

The smile Dust gave could probably light up all of Battery City. He was shy about it, too, which made Storm feel even more accomplished for bringing it out. “You look - um, you look really good too. What’s the plan?”

“Well,” Storm said, nodding to himself, getting his head back into gear. He could wonder what this little moment was about later. “I think we need our Homecoming Parade.”

He didn’t really want a Homecoming Parade, though, but it seemed like Desert tradition.

The sudden frown on Dust’s face said he thought the same thing. But it took him longer to speak up about it, and Storm waited, running off the time in his head. Time worked differently if you were looking at Dust, Storm believed. “I don’t think we really need one...I mean, did we not fuck up a bunch of stuff when we were escaping with the Four an’ them? We almost got caught ‘cos of going out of our way like that…”

“But it’s tradition, ain’t it?”

“And it’s tradition to find your own crew. We skipped that one, didn’t we? I would so much rather just...tell everyone, y’know? Maybe it won’t be dramatic or destructive, but that’s not really us, is it?”

“Can’t really say anything to the dramatic part with glitter in my hair,” Storm laughed lightly, running his hand through his hair for emphasis - it came out with glitter of every color sticking to it. Pony had given him a stash of glitter to work through! “But, yeah. I guess destruction really isn’t our thing.”

Dust seemed to be relieved that he agreed. “I would much rather just tell everyone, y’know? Can we do that?”

“Trying to get everyone in one place is going to be a little difficult…” Storm sighed. And it really was. There was always something going on - and if there wasn’t, then there was some sort of drama happening. 

For a Desert where half your time is spent waiting, there’s certainly a lot of drama to keep you entertained. Or at least, in the two months Storm had been out here there had been. It was scary, sometimes, the thought of the people who rescued him leaving never to come back, but they always came back. (Kobra just came back a few days later than everyone else when they stormed out.) 

Dust nodded. “It will be - but it’ll be worth it! Destroya, I’m tired of being called Dust.”

“I’m a bit tired of being called Storm.” The last fifteen times someone had called Ghoul a ‘Snow Storm’, Storm had dropped what he was doing to swivel around and figure out why he heard his name. It got old the moment he hit his head on the Diner bar counter as he tried to stand up from sitting underneath the overhanging part. 

Silence held their tongues for a while.

“Let’s tell the first person we see right now,” Dust blurted, chewing on his lip nervously, drumming a steady beat on his leg. 

He was nervous about this, but Storm was too - and that was actually a good idea. That was a really good idea. No it wasn’t, actually, but as Storm took Dust’s hand and rushed them both out of the room, it was too late to take it back.

The thigh holster carefully adjusted to Storm’s waist clunked on his leg uncomfortably; it would take some getting used to, of course, but the red ray gun fit inside it made him happy in a way only a killjoy would be.

A killjoy. He was a killjoy!

The reality dawned on him - sure, he was a killjoy before, kinda, but now he had a name and an outfit and a jacket and a gun and he was a killjoy!

He was a killjoy and so was Dust and fuck, this was so much better than whatever Battery City had planned for them could’ve ever been!

If he was running faster, that was the reason, and Dust wasn’t complaining, and Storm was absolutely beaming. 

And also not paying attention.

The first person they ran into, they physically ran into. Storm crashed hard into Jet’s chest, Dust crashing behind him, and he didn’t even apologize before scrambling back, the impact not making a dent in the sunshine smile on his face.

“Why are you guys so dressed up?” Jet joked, eyeing their colorful outfits. Storm glanced down at his own and a whole new wave of excitement hit him, like he wasn’t already as excited as he could be - home felt like the gold leather jacket he was wearing and the black bandanna and the white-washed jeans with doodles on them. 

Home felt like the matching gold bandanna tied around Dust’s thigh. 

“We choose our names!” Dust was just as excited as Storm, it seemed, practically vibrating with how happy he was feeling.

Jet quirked a brow, suddenly rather interested and a knowing look dawning on their face. “What’d you choose?”

“I’m Killer King!” Storm - no, no King - grinned, rocking on the heels of his boots, waiting for Jet’s reaction - knowing the name felt right to him and everyone who heard it had to think the same, right?

Dust continued before Jet could answer. “And I’m Northern Downpour!”

Jet contemplated. King’s enthusiasm didn’t waver in the slightest, elation filling his veins. “Killer King and Northern Downpour, huh?”

“Yeah!”

“I think…” And now a genuine smile was sliding onto Jet’s face, too, and if possible King’s mood flew even higher. “I think it sounds right - and I think we need to tell everyone! C’mon, c’mon!”

How Downpour managed to get on Jet’s back in all the chaos of them trying to find people to tell, King didn’t know, but he did know he was holding Downpour’s hand all the while, talking rushed and drunk on knowing his identity when they did find someone, throwing his arms out when he talked and accidentally hitting Jet in the face with Downpour’s arm. 

Killer King and Northern Downpour. 

Jet was right; it did feel right. It had a nice ring to it, didn’t it?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope u enjoyed the fluff! It was a pleasure to write and comment maybe?


End file.
